MILAN (Reuters) - Huawei Technologies will continue working with Telecom Italia (MI:TLIT) despite being shut out of a recent tender to supply new generation 5G technology, the chairman of the group's Italian unit told a newspaper on Monday.
Luigi De Vecchis said the decision to exclude Huawei from supplying new generation 5G services in Great Britain was a "geopolitical, not a technological decision" but Telecom Italia's decision was different.
"We respect the decision, which is of a commercial not a political nature that concerns one of the many parts of the network," he said.
"Of course we're sorry, it's not a party but we continue to work with TIM as well as with Vodafone (LON:VOD) and others."
The U.S. government has urged allies to exclude the Chinese telecoms giant from the West's next-generation communications infrastructure because of the danger it could give China a strategic opening to spy on the West.